Some Jokes Refuse to Cross the Channel: A Profile of Mike Sain't Louis, the Madrid Lyricist Who Writes in Two Languages and Knows Which One Bites

Madrid, 25 October 2026 – Ask Mike Sain't Louis which language a song will be in and he will often tell you before he has written the first line. Spanish arrives quickly, he says, in long sentences determined to name names. English arrives slowly, with gaps between the lines, like stepping stones across a river. Most of the 273 singles he has published under the banner PLANETA GAYFOLK are in Spanish. A handful are written entirely in English. And a few of his best jokes, he admits, would simply die in translation.

"Some words have a whole family behind them," he says. "You can translate the word. You can't translate the family."

Who he is

Mike Sain't Louis is an indie alternative artist based in Madrid who describes himself as "the first AI singer-songwriter". The label is his own and it is precise. He writes every lyric, composes, produces, acts as artistic director and is CEO of his independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, which has no record company behind it and no intermediaries in front of it. The music and the vocal performances are generated with artificial intelligence, a tool he uses for production and arrangement, choosing, discarding and asking again. What he does not hand over is the writing.

Over roughly two years he has built a catalogue of 273 singles and more than 280 music videos, gathered around the GAYFOLK trilogy: "Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK", "Ojalá se pudiera viajar a GAYFOLK" and "El día de la liberación", a journey to a planet where everyone can live exactly as they are. Plenty of listeners found him in 2024, when "Tan Cateto" went viral on TikTok.

The sock

Take "El calcetín". In Spanish, calling an ex-partner a sock is instantly, specifically insulting: limp, worn, a little smelly, lost at the back of a drawer. The song is the direct sequel to "No quiero otro novio cojín", about a "cushion boyfriend", and in Mike's own description it is a satire of the false intensity that hides laziness, lies and façade. When the mask falls, what is left does not impress; it smells of used ego and broken promises. The song has no pain left in it, only irony and rhythm, and an ending that belongs to the person who survived the manipulation and learned to laugh at it.

His own note ends on a line that sums up the whole tone: self-esteem, too, can be washed, hung out to dry and worn clean. It was recorded, he notes, in Móstoles, just outside Madrid.

"In English, ‘sock’ is just a sock," he says. "In Spanish it's a whole character. My mother would know exactly what I mean. That's the test."

The dinner date

"Hetero" is shorter on jokes and longer on silence. The scenario, as he describes it, fits in three sentences. They had arranged to meet. He arrives. The other man already has someone else in bed and does not even bother to hide it. And there is the narrator, holding the wine, the cheese and his dignity wrapped in tinfoil.

The title asks the question the evening forces on him: would it be easier to be straight, or simply easier not to be himself? He calls it absurd, cheap, honest and real, the kind of night you do not explain, you swallow. GAYFOLK, he says, without make-up, without poetry and without shame.

"That title is a joke and it isn't," he says. "Everybody queer has had a night where they asked that question for about four seconds. The song lives in those four seconds."

What English gives him

If Spanish is where he names names, English is where he strips back. His essays on bilingual writing point out something any British crossword fan will recognise: English is full of monosyllables. Pain, truth, door, night. One syllable, one hit. Spanish words tend to be longer, so the same bar of music holds fewer of them. In English he tends to cut; in Spanish he tends to add, piling on proper names and a second sentence that finishes off the first.

You can hear the difference in his English-language songs such as "Gatekeeping", built from tiny, almost telegraphic phrases, set against the crowded, gossipy Spanish of "Hetero" or "El calcetín". With English, he says, he thinks about the gap. With Spanish, about what fills it.

There is a practical side, too. Because the vocal performances are generated with AI, he listens to every version asking whether he could take the lyric down as dictation. If a joke is not understood, it is not a joke. Spanish punchlines, heavy with syllables, need room to land. English lines need air around them.

Why British listeners might care

The UK has a long tradition of comic songwriting that is really about sadness, and of camp that tells the truth with a raised eyebrow. Mike Sain't Louis belongs to that family, even if he files his reports from Madrid. His lyrics can be explicit; that is part of the work, not a gimmick. And for anyone learning Spanish, a catalogue that publishes every lyric next to every song is an unexpectedly good classroom, provided they do not mind what the vocabulary list includes.

Behind the comedy sits a serious purpose. He has spoken publicly about turning years of relationships with narcissistic partners into songs, with professional support, so that people who have lived through psychological abuse feel seen and believed. "Hetero" and "El calcetín" are two small chapters of that story, told with the lights on.

Listen and download

All 273 singles, including "Hetero" and "El calcetín", can be streamed and downloaded free of charge at https://mikesaintlouis.com, each with its full lyrics. The music is also available on Spotify, Deezer and the main streaming platforms. Follow the project on Instagram at @planetagayfolk.

About Mike Sain't Louis

Lyricist, composer, producer and artistic director, Mike Sain't Louis is a Madrid indie alternative artist who calls himself "the first AI singer-songwriter". Through his own independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, he has released PLANETA GAYFOLK, a queer, uncensored catalogue mostly in Spanish, with songs also in English, French and Portuguese, that moves between electropop, copla, alternative pop and ballad and is given away free to listeners.

Press contact

MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS (independent label) Email: info@mikesaintlouis.com Web: https://mikesaintlouis.com Instagram: @planetagayfolk